


all my worlds lead back to you

by starkravinghazelnuts



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, au-ish, these two dorks are so in love and I need to write about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-14
Updated: 2017-11-14
Packaged: 2019-02-02 09:10:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12723699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starkravinghazelnuts/pseuds/starkravinghazelnuts
Summary: She curled into him, leaning against his side as she whisper shouted at the contestants on TV. He was playing with the curling ends of her hair when it struck him how beautiful she looked right then - passionately muttering about Jeopardy of all things, dwarfed in the over sized Harry Potter hoodie she had stolen from one of her brothers. And later that night, as she pressed one last kiss against his bare chest before falling asleep next to him, hoodie long since abandoned, he felt a series of tumbles and swoops in his chest and stomach that he couldn't quite explain.Or the one where Jake Peralta goes home to Amy Santiago every night and really wants to scream from rooftops about it. Or you know, announce it in the bullpen. Both work.





	all my worlds lead back to you

**Author's Note:**

> An AU where Jake and Amy are already in a relationship before Holt becomes captain.

Jake Peralta was having a really, truly bad, pathetic, god-awful day.

He’d woken up cold and alone, which though not an entirely rare occurrence was certainly an uncommon one considering the past couple of weeks. And if his spirits weren’t dampened enough, he’d stumbled into his kitchen only to find that he’d run out of coffee. Shovelling a stale Pop Tart into his mouth, Jake padded into the shower, but even the steady stream of water beating against his head and back did nothing to quell his drowsiness. 

He was just about out of the door when he realised he had forgotten an important element of the newly instated uniform – the damn tie. Cursing under his breath, Jake hurried back and started flinging out clothes from his closet at random until he could come across a tie. Surprisingly enough, his method didn’t seem to work – only contributing to the ever growing mound of plaid shirts and hoodies on his bed. Desperate, Jake grabbed onto the black tie that was part of his _actual_ uniform and frantically ran out. Checking the time as he got into the car, Jake realised that he probably would be late – and thinking about why the thought of being late actually bothered him was something he _really_ did not want to deal with right now.

He finally pulled over outside the precinct and spotted Amy standing there waiting, two cups of coffee in her hands. His lips involuntarily curved into a smile. Amy Santiago was a freaking angel. Excitedly bounding over to her, Jake pretty much mauled the cup out of her hand, chugging the coffee and pushing the thoughts of a scalded tongue to the back of his mind. He was pretty sure that the moan that escaped his lips bordered on the obscene, but Amy had heard worse (done worse, a part of his mind smirked gleefully) so he didn’t really care.

Amy’s mind seemed to have followed the same route as she scoffed and said, “Thought that was my job, Peralta?”

“Yeah well you abandoned me this morning so I’m replacing you with this coffee.”

Rolling her eyes at his antics, Amy somehow ended up staring at her partner. (boyfriend? fuck buddy? Oh god they could not be fuck buddies. Amy ‘Most Appropriate’ Santiago _did not_ do fuck buddies. But she did not do conversations about relationships either and oh god she was going to think herself into another shame ciga-)

“Ames? You okay? Lost you there for a bit. Are you mourning the fact that you can’t get with all this anymore, because I would totally get that. I mean I am an exceedingly handsome man and as you know pretty damn good in be-”

Jake’s sentence was cut off by Amy’s hand clamping over his mouth.

“Shh,” she hissed. “We’re at the precinct, someone might overhear us.”

Some of the mirth in Jake’s eyes died down – he really was having a bad day. He knew that Amy wanted to maintain a professional appearance at work, but hiding their not-a-relationship-but-definitely-a-something seemed more than just a professional decision. The people at the Nine-Nine weren’t just colleagues, they were his friends and he really wanted to tell them about his not-a-relationship. It had been the best damn month ever and he wanted to tell every freaking person he knew about it. He wanted Rosa to act like she didn’t care, but punch his arm the way she did when she was happy. He wanted Gina to pretend like she was disgusted but later say something like “Knew ya had it in you, kid”. He wanted Charles to do the high pitched babbling thing he did when he was happy. He wanted the Sarge to look at the two of them proudly; after all, Terry loves love. And even though it had only been a week and a half, he even wanted Captain Holt to look at him with his veiled form of approval. He couldn’t quite figure the last one out. (“Daddy issues!” a voice that sounded suspiciously like Gina shouted out in his head.) He knew that Amy saw them as more than colleagues too. So a part of him wondered – the part that used to wait on the porch for days after his dad left – whether Amy was ashamed of whatever it is they were.

“Jake?” Amy tried, but to no response.

“Peralta?” But his silence continued.

“Oy, Pineapples!”

That one seemed to work because she was pretty sure she heard him grumpily (but not really) mumble, “Really shouldn’t have told you about that one.”

“Where did you go?” she asked.

Jake heaved a sigh. He could’ve come up with something impossibly ridiculous and she could’ve given him her patented ‘I don’t believe you Peralta, but I’m going to go with it anyway’ look and they could’ve gone back to normal. Or their version of normal. The one where they exchanged an equal amount of vicious barbs and flirty banter with one another at work, pretended to leave separately and then end up at one of their apartments – making out on the couch during commercials on ‘Jeopardy!’ But Jake was having a truly crummy day and suddenly their version of normal wasn’t enough. And he was already having a bad day so he realised he might as well rip off the figurative band-aid because how much worse could it get? _(‘Eyes closed, head first, can't lose, right?’)_

Steeling himself, Jake blurted out the first thing that came to his mind. 

“I was actually worried that I might be late to work today.”

That really wasn’t what Amy had expected which threw her for a loop and there was a terrifyingly familiar sinking feeling in her stomach. Was this the part where he told her that she had influenced him with all her boring (‘Santiago in the mud’ teen voices in her head whispered) tendencies and he hated it? Was he ending their not-a-relationship?

Amy was looking at him, fear widening her eyes and Jake began to wonder if there was a way that the ground could open up and swallow him whole. She was actually scared that he has feelings for her? Oh god he might be sick. But if there was one thing Jake Peralta is, is stubborn. And heaven help him, he’s going to finish what he started.

“Yeah. I – um – woke up and you were gone and I hated it. Because I really like waking up with you. And Ames, the sex is so good. Like amazingly good. It doesn’t even make sense how good we’re at it. But – and I’m going to sound so corny – but I like all the other stuff too. Like talking about our cases over takeout and teaching you how to make pancakes in the mornings and watching you solve the crossword in my shirt and all those things that people in relationships do. And so when you weren’t there in the morning, I was worried about being late. Because if I was late I wouldn’t get to meet you outside the precinct. Outside where I don’t have to pretend that I don’t know that you have a mole on the inside of your left thigh, where I don’t have to stop myself from kissing you on the head when your nose does that scrunchy thing. So yeah. What I’m trying to say is that I really like you. And I like what we have. But I hate that it’s on the down low and that I have to worry about getting to work a little early just so I can hold your hand and kiss you and all that mushy Nora Ephron crap. So um yeah if you want to stop whatever we are because of this then I’m totally cool with it and won’t be supremely crushed or anything but if you’re ending it just do it quickly so that my crappy day isn’t prolonge-”

Once again, Amy managed to cut Jake off. This time simply yanking him towards her by pulling on his tie, and kissing the damn daylights out of him. Somewhere along Jake’s increasingly panicked monologue, Amy Santiago realised both how incredibly lucky and incredibly stupid she was. Lucky because she was dating – yes, dating – someone right out of some nauseatingly cute Disney-Pixar movie and stupid because how could she ever have been worried that he wasn’t serious about them?

Taken off guard by Amy’s move, Jake had simply stiffened in response. Amy’s hand was still firmly locked around his tie and her other hand had crept up his back, resting momentarily on the nape of his neck and then carding through his hair. That was what finally jolted Jake out of whatever stupor he had been in. Dropping the coffee cup, he gripped Amy’s waist with one hand, pressing the other against the small of her back and pulling her flush against him. Her lips moved almost furiously against his, coaxing his mouth open. His hands roamed the expanse of her back, smoothening over her sides, slipping under her blazer as she made a frustratingly hot whimper from the back of her throat. If he had a word to describe the kiss, he’d say desperate and if he didn’t want it to stray into indecent he really had to stop. But Amy seemed to have no intention of stopping and even a better man than Jake wouldn’t be able to resist Amy Santiago when she looked at him with that combination of swollen lips and sultry eyes. Jake didn’t stand a chance. 

Finally, more than just a little light headed, the two broke apart, foreheads resting against each other, Amy’s nose nudging his cheek and his breath ghosting over her lips. He glanced down at her hand, the one that was still wrapped around his now crumpled tie. 

Blindingly happy, shit-eating grin in place, Jake mused, “Is _that_ why Holt insisted on ties being a part of the uniform?”

Amy was just about in the middle of rolling her eyes and giggling simultaneously, when an unmistakeable baritone cut in from the left.

“It is definitely a perk, yes.”

Jake’s jaw pretty much hit the ground as he managed to catch a twinkle of humour in the Captain’s eyes before he turned his back and began to walk into the precinct. Jake was sure he looked like a kid on Christmas morning. Amy on the other hand was gaping like a fish. Jaws moving but no sound escaping her mouth. Hair mussed, lips swollen red, eyes slightly unfocused, face flushed and the very familiar SantiagoTM embarrassed posture as she stared at the Captain’s retreating figure. Jake thought she had never looked better.

“This was really not how I wanted him to find out,” she squeaked.

Jake was just about to placate his girlfriend when her expression morphed first into the one she had while solving a puzzle and then an epiphany and finally something resembling pride.

“Jake he made a joke! Holt totally approves of us.”

Shaking his head, Jake pulled his adorable dork of a girlfriend (yes, girlfriend – he was most definitely pumping his fists in his head) into his side and pressed a kiss into her hair. 

It wasn’t that much of a bad, pathetic, god-awful day after all.

(Later, when Amy tugged him by his tie and pressed a chaste kiss on his lips in the middle of the bullpen and Charles cheered and Terry hugged them and Rosa punched his arm and Gina said that Nana would be proud, Jake figured that this was probably the best freaking day of his life.)


End file.
